quote:

ORIGINAL: khyberbill

And dont forget you need a certain level of supply to build a fort beyond lvl 6.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: khyberbill

And dont forget you need a certain level of supply to build a fort beyond lvl 6.

really? Is that in the manual? I missed it ... [X(]

quote:

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

What does it take to get Iwo Jima, for example, to size-9? Are we talking 100 engineering squads working for a year, or what?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Clearly the way AE works is that building up to size-3 forts is quick and easy; I assume these are Field forts, basically foxholes, sandbags, a few log bunkers, nothing too elaborate.

After level 3, construction is much slower. My question is this:

How much slower does it get?

What does it take to get Iwo Jima, for example, to size-9? Are we talking 100 engineering squads working for a year, or what?

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

My real concern is how quickly the fort I worked for weeks or months to complete is reduced.

Just how effective are forts when it only takes only ONE day of combat for engineers to reduce them by a level?

Is there a sliding scale of difficulty in reducing them just the same as the slidning scale in creating them? It sure doesn't look that way to me. Engineers seem to be able to reduce a fort level from 3 to 2 just as quickly and easily as they reduce it from 1 to 0. They can even do so while participating in attacks at abysmal odds.

I have seen the AI perform suicide 1-99 odds attacks just so the engineers can reduce the fort by a level. Something about this just screams out that it is poorly modeled. Engineers shouldn't be able to automatically generate a fort reduction merely by participating in an attack, no matter how poor the odds.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but in my mind the amount of time needed to reduce a fort plays into the equation regarding how much time and resouces I should spend creating them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

My real concern is how quickly the fort I worked for weeks or months to complete is reduced.

Just how effective are forts when it only takes only ONE day of combat for engineers to reduce them by a level?

Is there a sliding scale of difficulty in reducing them just the same as the slidning scale in creating them? It sure doesn't look that way to me. Engineers seem to be able to reduce a fort level from 3 to 2 just as quickly and easily as they reduce it from 1 to 0. They can even do so while participating in attacks at abysmal odds.

I have seen the AI perform suicide 1-99 odds attacks just so the engineers can reduce the fort by a level. Something about this just screams out that it is poorly modeled. Engineers shouldn't be able to automatically generate a fort reduction merely by participating in an attack, no matter how poor the odds.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but in my mind the amount of time needed to reduce a fort plays into the equation regarding how much time and resouces I should spend creating them.

Well, Fort Drum (the "Concrete Battleship") took several years to complete---but it only took American Combat Engineers one afternoon to blow it to he11 and gone (level 8? to level "worthless").

On the other hand, that was a very well planned and executed "special op"..., so maybe the problem isn't how quickly it happens when it does, but how often it happens per chance...

quote:

My thoughts exactly. As currently structured, does engineer participation in an attack, no matter how poor the odds, AUTOMATICALLY result in fort level reduction, OR is there only a CHANCE of fort reduction? Does the chance of fort reduction, if structured this way, vary with the combat odds?

These are questions I would really like to see answered by some one in the know.

quote:

ORIGINAL: erstad

quote:

My thoughts exactly. As currently structured, does engineer participation in an attack, no matter how poor the odds, AUTOMATICALLY result in fort level reduction, OR is there only a CHANCE of fort reduction? Does the chance of fort reduction, if structured this way, vary with the combat odds?

These are questions I would really like to see answered by some one in the know.

I know one thing:
- Not automatic reduction, it is a chance of reduction. Many times a fort is not reduced in an attack.

It should be relatively easy to find out if it's odds based - watch the sequence closely and see if the engineer reduction occurs before the odds are calculated. I think it does, but wouldn't want to say that for sure.

I speculate another thing:
- Chance of reduction is a function of the number of combat engineers present

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


While I can't tell where in the sequence the fort reduction occurs, it is ahead of the odds in the combat reports. Which, to me, seems completely bass ackwards.

The combat odds should have a direct impact in determining the chances for success of the engineering effort. If the odds are so abysmal that the firepower of the troops in the fort is soo overwhelming that the engineers cannot even get near the fortifications to place the charges then thier chances of success would be greatly reduced.

Allowing the engineers to reduce the fort before the odds are calculated looks a lot like a free pass for the engineers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


While I can't tell where in the sequence the fort reduction occurs, it is ahead of the odds in the combat reports. Which, to me, seems completely bass ackwards.

The combat odds should have a direct impact in determining the chances for success of the engineering effort. If the odds are so abysmal that the firepower of the troops in the fort is soo overwhelming that the engineers cannot even get near the fortifications to place the charges then thier chances of success would be greatly reduced.

Allowing the engineers to reduce the fort before the odds are calculated looks a lot like a free pass for the engineers.

It is less bass ackwards than you might think. The odds are calculated *after* all of the combat (artillery bombardment, then devices firing at each other) occurs. The odds only determine if the defender retreats. The combat engineers are in the front line and have to survive all the shooting. If, when the dust settles, you still have enough combat engineers alive and undisrupted, you have a chance to reduce the forts, even if your final odds are (substantially) less than 1:1. Obviously, if your finals odds were, say, 4:1, there is a much better chance, all things being equal, that enough of your engineers survived to take the fort down a level.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yakface

If you are attacking at odds of 1-99 the chance of dropping a fort will be aweful as your engineers will almost certainly have been wiped out before they get a chance to do their thing.

This is not a consequence of the odds ratio (as calculated during the OCD phase [;)]), but rather the odds ratio and low chance of dropping a fort are symptoms of the same thing - the bad ratio of your men : enemy bullets.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Understood. Perhaps the reason for my obsessiveness with this is that I actually experienced the one in a zillion iteration where a 1-99 odds attack (actually not sure how the code arrived at 1-99 odds when the final adjusted "assault" (read firepower) value of the attacker was 0) made against Singapore resulted in the reduction of the fort. If, at the end of the fire phase the the attacker had 0 firepower left where did these unkilled, undisabled engineers who succeeded in reducing the fort come from?

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yakface

If you are attacking at odds of 1-99 the chance of dropping a fort will be aweful as your engineers will almost certainly have been wiped out before they get a chance to do their thing.

This is not a consequence of the odds ratio (as calculated during the OCD phase [;)]), but rather the odds ratio and low chance of dropping a fort are symptoms of the same thing - the bad ratio of your men : enemy bullets.

Understood. Perhaps the reason for my obsessiveness with this is that I actually experienced the one in a zillion iteration where a 1-99 odds attack (actually not sure how the code arrived at 1-99 odds when the final adjusted "assault" (read firepower) value of the attacker was 0) made against Singapore resulted in the reduction of the fort. If, at the end of the fire phase the the attacker had 0 firepower left where did these unkilled, undisabled engineers who succeeded in reducing the fort come from?